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Alan Jackson Recruits Working Men, Women for 'Hard Hat and a Hammer' Video

Alan Jackson Recruits Working Men, Women for 'Hard Hat and a Hammer' Video

Posted Jun 24th 2010 on The Boot by Nancy Dunham

Alan Jackson is one country star who hasn't forgotten his working man roots. It only takes one look at the new video for 'Hard Hat and a Hammer' from his just-released 'Freight Train' album to see the proof.

While many musicians hire actors and recruit friends and other industry insiders to participate in their video shoots, Alan sent the video director on an excursion around the southeast to find real-life men and women who put in their working hours at construction sites, mines, restaurants, paper mills, foundries and other similar sites. Of course, this sort of ode to the working man and woman isn't a new concept for Alan.

Last month, he played a concert to honor the miners and rescue workers who were killed and injured in the Upper Big Branch Mining disaster in West Virginia. Not only did the families receive free tickets to Alan's concert at the nearby Charleston, West Virginia Civic Center, but he raised more than $150,000 for the Montcoal Mining Disaster Fund.

"We're here to honor the ones that we lost or were injured and we're gonna celebrate their lives with some music," Alan told the crowd, according to Country Weekly.

During the performance, photos of the faces of each miner caught in the disaster were projected on giant screens on each side of the stage as Robbie Flint -- Alan's steel player and a West Virginia native -- played 'Cape Coalwood,' from the soundtrack of the 1999 movie 'October Sky.'